Peter Eastgate

Biography

Peter Eastgate is a Danish professional poker player who currently lives in London, England. He stormed onto the poker scene as an unassuming youngster from Denmark in 2008 to become the youngest ever winner or the WSOP Main Event.

Intro

Eastgate was born in 1985 in Odense, Denmark. He took the poker world by storm in 2008 by winning the most prestigious tournament of them all, the World Series of Poker. He also has the record of placing second at the European Poker Tour Main Event in London in 2009 as well as scoring a couple more money finishes in both WSOP and EPT.

Background

Eastgate picked up poker through friends while a teenager and went on to really excel at the game. He felt he was doing so well with it in fact that he dropped out of college to pursue a full-time career playing poker. Like most young players nowadays, Eastgate began by depositing money into an online poker account. Not really winning and not really losing, Peter got better and better as time progressed. Soon enough, he was moving up in limits and relying on poker to be his sole source of income. It’s rumored that before his big win at the WSOP, Eastgate was a regular player in games with limits up to $200-400. Not bad for a kid barely legal to drink in the United States.

World Series of Poker

Eastgate got to the 2008 WSOP by qualifying online. When play began that year, there’s no doubt that the majority of the poker community had no idea of who Peter Eastgate was. A few days later, that would all change when he became part of the “November Nine” that reached the final table.

After a long break for several months, the final table was played. Things would last over 15 hours before Eastgate emerged victorious over another young and very talented new face, Ivan Demidov. Eastgate's win was good for over $9 million and also landed him a deal with online juggernaut PokerStars.

Peter Eastgate's Top 3 WSOP Results

European Poker Tour

After he won the WSOP title Eastgate became a regular in some of the biggest tournaments around the world, in hopes to show that his win wasn’t a one-time ordeal. A few months later after the calendar turned its pages to 2009, Eastgate cashed in two events at the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Poker Adventure. One of those events, Peter won for a nice prize of $343,000. His biggest EPT achievement, though came a couple of months later when Eastgate finished second to Aaron Gustavson at the EPT London Main Event for more than half a million pounds.

Peter Eastgate's Top 5 EPT Results

Other Achievements

Tournaments aren’t all that Eastgate does. He can regularly be found in some of the highest limits online playing cash games or on an episode of High Stakes Poker battling it out with other top professionals.

Sponsorship

After winning the World Series Eastgate signed a sponsorship deal with the PokerStars online poker site and represented the brand on the live tournament circuit. He eventually left PokerStars and in February, 2012 signed with Betfair Poker.

Did you know?

• In July, 2010 Eastgate made an announcement saying he was leaving poker for good. However, he returned to the tables just eight months later and continued playing live and online tournaments and cash games.
• In November, 2010 Eastgate sold his WSOP bracelet in an online auction for $147,500, and donated the money to charity.